• GIMME A HUG

    It seems odd, as I am nota hugger by nature,I love trees and hugfamilially but asidefrom family, huggingjust is not somethingI ever did. Now, when huggingis a potential deathsentence if finishedI see many around meall at a safe distanceand feel a strong desireto embrace some,knowing they wouldwelcome my arms. When this is over,when distance issomething…


  • SNAKE, PRAY FOR US

    In a time set aside for mourningwe easily remember those, lovedor despised, taken by age, disease,war or poverty and neglect. But trapped in our isolationwe should also pause and recallthe snake, condemned for offeringknowledge for which we were ill-equipped. Let us not forget the ram,whose only sin was to bein the wrong place at the…


  • ON KNOWLEDGE

    There are things children knowthat parents will never understand. Odder still, things a person knowsas a child are forgotten in adulthood. A child measures the success of a dayby the duration of the parentdemanded bath at its end. A child know that boundaries, especiallythose parentally set, are flexibleand you don’t know wherethe limit is until…


  • BUCKET LIST

    Crossing the Rubicon,or any other European Riverfor that matter. Skiing the backcountryor Black Diamond at Taos Mountainor Aspen or Vail. Hiking to the basecampof Everest, or walking some portionor all of the Appalachian Trail. Standing shoulder to shoulderwith hundreds of othersat the jazz festival. Hugging my sons orkissing my grandchildrenon their birthdays. Forgetting all that…


  • THE CHARM

    The first one felt right,there was nothing deeper considered,just that feeling that now,I know, anyone might have providedbut then, it was somethingin a world of nothing. The second, really, wascertainly right, for life this time,the wisdom of a single failureenough to ensure success,and when it came apartthirty years later, it wasapparent it was never right,just…


  • WRITERS

    I was born the same day, ina much later year as Thornton Wilder,a fact that had no impact at allon my life, since I discovered ourcommon birthday long aftermy life’s path was half tread. I read him in my youth, and mustadmit I can recall nothing of whatI read, which I attribute to allthat I…


  • THE WAVES

    We, so far out at sea,see only the waves passing,the rise and fall, the rhythm,and cannot imagineit could be otherwise, You, on the shorecannot perceive the waveswe do, torn by the reefthat leaves you onlyimagining what you thinkthe waves might be. We cannot imaginethe silence, the isolationyou must feel in yourwaveless world withonly memory of…


  • THEN, NOW

    It was easier then, so let’sgo there, the spring of 1970,the location is less important,so long as it’s a coffee housewhere those barely old enoughto drink, or barely short of thatage congregate, waiting forsomething to happen or, Iseriously hoped, someone,someone with little hair, butwho carried James Joyce inhis jeans pocket, Portrait ofthe Artist the only…


  • READY, FIRE, AIM

    He should have knownthat the day was doomedfrom the moment he woketo see his alarm clock in pieceson the floor by his bed, the catgrinning at him from the placewhere the clock had always sat. Finally arriving at the office,he was no sooner at his deskwhen the fire alarm bell rang.Within moments of reenteringafter the…


  • PENNED IN

    He stares at the collectionof pens crammed tightly intoa coffee mug whose handlehad long since broken away. He knows some are dead,awaiting a proper burial,following a brief memorialservice paying homageto their illustrious past. He is certain that oneor more is secretly harboringthe poem or story that hehas been meaning to write,the one that the journalon…